


Ayurnamat

by odiko_ptino



Series: Featured Character: Ganymede [2]
Category: Greek and Roman Mythology
Genre: not a child, reminder that ganymede is a young man in my telling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-20 21:45:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17030580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/odiko_ptino/pseuds/odiko_ptino
Summary: Zeus and the Fates survey the end of Ganymede's mortal life.





	Ayurnamat

When Akakios has been with them only a month, Ganymede catches ill and becomes feverish.  He lies in bed, eyes closed but unable to sleep, eating almost nothing, speaking nonsense if he finds the energy to speak at all.  The healers, who have seen such before, do what they can to make the boy comfortable but do not hold much hope.

And yet.. all at once, the fever leaves him.  King Tros comes in one morning to bathe his dying son’s forehead, and finds him sitting up in bed, pale and tired but cheerful and demanding honey bread with figs.  

The household praises Apollo, thanking him for sparing their sweetest boy, and carry on.

Akakios has been with them a full season when the boy is gored by one of the king’s bulls.  A poultice is made, without much hope, because the horn went deep into his thigh and much blood was spilled.

He recovers.  Thanks are given, but uneasily now.  It is known that to be lucky too often, will catch up to a person before the end.  

Akakios has been with them half a year when Ganymede is tossed from a boat by unruly waves, and swept out to sea.  He is found, wobbly and confused but unharmed, on the beach not far from Troy.  This beach is guarded by sharp rocks positioned in such a way that brings a deathly current.  Ganymede can offer no explanation for how he swam to safety - he sounds as doubtful as the rest of them when he says the sea foam carried him.

By now, everyone is afraid, though no one speaks of it to Ganymede.  Fate must be closing in on him.  The forces of the universe have fixed on him.  King Tros watches his youngest son with an aching heart, and thinks, perhaps it is kinder this way.  

Ganymede is unusually polite and sweet-natured.  Some have remarked - not unkindly, but still, the truth stings - that he is almost like a child in his innocence.  He has no head for politics and no heart for fighting.  He is happy enough to serve his community, participating in civic events and assisting in the fields - but he isn’t skilled at it.  He prefers to spend his days, well, playing.  Dancing and singing and running and playing.  

Tros has worried about Ganymede before.  His older brothers take on the duties of king and warrior, so there isn’t a practical NEED for Ganymede to step up and be a man… but he should.  He can’t stay a child forever.

And yet, what would he do, as a man?  He has no innate leadership qualities.  He hasn’t the sternness of character to fight.  He might marry some foreign princess one day… but Tros cannot imagine the boy running his own household.

And perhaps he never will.  He is clearly marked for early death.  Ganymede will surely die young, before the world has had its chance to make him old and weary and bitter.  Ganymede will die and be frozen forever in this time, innocent and bold and happy.  And unsuspecting, Ganymede goes through his days cheerful and kind as always, thinking nothing of what it means to elude fate for so long.  

He races his horses, plays with his dogs, wrestles with his tutor Akakios.  He sings songs with Akakios, too, and they compose poetry and entertain each other with wild tales of adventure, and kiss often, if they think they can’t be seen.

The people of Troy say, quietly, that there’s no telling if King Tros or Akakios the foreign tutor will be more heartbroken when fate finally catches up to the young prince.

———————

~The mortal boy Ganymede will not live to become a man.~

Zeus surveys the situation grimly.  He’s made the same error that many other gods have made before him: he has seen the boy’s fate in the Moirae’s cloth, and chosen to fight it, even knowing the futility of it.

And it IS futile.  The universe conspires to keep fate on track.  It WILL keep fate on track.  Now the elements are building multiple failsafes to ensure Ganymede’s death.  Bandits roam the fields Ganymede is tasked to guard, where bandits had never been so bold before. Pirates lurk the coast where the prince likes to fish - rarely did they dare before, so close to the spears of Troy.  Ganymede’s brothers struggle in their diplomacies; war may break out, and the youngest son of the king will make a fine ransom.  Hell, even lions have been spotted moving further north and west than they ever have before; while the bears move south and east.

Ganymede is nearly old enough now that he will be considered a man by the world.  He hasn’t much time left.

Zeus can plainly see the universe converging on the sweet, handsome, spoiled, naive, kind, wonderful young man he loves.  Something will kill him, and soon.  And Zeus must allow it.  The longer he delays, the more Ganymede will suffer.

And yet… when he thinks of Ganymede dying…

In his bed, ill and miserable, purging his stomach of its contents and not in possession of his own mind…

In pain, weeping and bleeding in the dust before the stables…

Sinking to the depths of Poseidon’s domain, water filling his lungs as he struggles to stay afloat… or dashed against the sharp rocks, turned to a bloody pulp…

Zeus is ancient.  He has seen humans die beyond counting.  Young, old, in pain, in peace.  He should be used to this.  But Ganymede is different… Ganymede, with his beauty and kindness and affection, has taken hold of his heart like no other, and the thought of him in pain or terror, makes Zeus want to weep.

If Zeus was kind, he would finish Ganymede now, swiftly, with a lightning bolt.  Fulfill his fate with minimal cruelty.

He goes back to the Fates, flinching at the sight of their cloth.

“Oh, you’re back,” Clotho observes dryly.

“Looking no older nor wiser,” chimes in Lachesis.  

“The weaving has been getting exciting.”  Atropos gestures towards the cruel cloth they are working on.

They are not cruel, not really.  It always seems that way, at first.  But the Moirae are the only ones to see the full pattern of the universe all at once.  Even Zeus is only privy to bits and pieces of it at any given time.  The ancient women here see it all and accept it all without flinching - the beautiful and the sorrowful.  

“I submit,” he says.  “As you warned - it is futile and foolish, and only prolongs the sorrow.  I wish to end his life as mercifully as can be allowed.  Peer into your pattern and tell me if -“

They all scoff at once.

“Poor Zeus.”

“Full points for making the attempt, in any case.”

“But you didn’t listen so closely as you might have.”

Zeus says nothing, blinking at them.  It’s testament to the respect he has for them that he only waits in silence - his sorrows often tend to display explosively in other audiences.  

“The mortal boy Ganymede will not live to become a man,” Lachesis says again, slowly, as though to an idiot.

Zeus’ eye twitches but he only frowns, not comprehending.

The crones all sigh.

“Think on it,” Clotho advises.

“And stop fretting so much, as to the interpretation of the weaving,” says Atropos.  “It will be as fated.  Accept that, and you will find that all that leads up to the end is negotiable.”

Confused and troubled, Zeus leaves.

————-

It is about two weeks later that the insight comes to him, as he sees the bandits hired by the enemies of Troy.  The men approach by night, going to where the youngest prince is guarding sheep.  

King Tros has sent him there much for the same reason Zeus keeps intervening - they both want Ganymede to know nothing but peace and happiness.  Tros wants to spare his son the ugliness of war, as long as possible, preferring to see his charming boy playing music in the fields and flirting with passing travelers and smiling in the sunlight.

Regrettably, this makes him an easy target for the kidnappers… and, Zeus has seen the cloth.  The kidnappers will likely end up being murderers.

It’s as he’s watching them, broken-hearted, that the words come to him:

“The mortal boy Ganymede will not live to become a man.”

The mortal boy will not become a man.  The mortal boy.   _Mortal_.

———-

The fields are dark; the moon behind a covering of clouds.  There is nothing to see in the dark; only the nervous bleating of the sheep to let him know they are there at all.  He is wide awake and alert, straining to hear, all attention on the far end of the field.

The monstrous bird, when it comes, catches him entirely by surprise - scaly talons as thick as his torso, that wrap around his entire body and lift him up.  His feet leave the ground, his head dangling down.  He hears the bleating swell in volume and then recede.  His dogs, too, are baying, the sound fading below him.  

Did he cry out, or struggle? Perhaps.  But his shock and total bewilderment are so great that he mostly just - shakes, and breathes raggedly, and wonders if he is dreaming.

The moon comes out from behind the clouds, finally, and he sees two things: the first, below him, is water.  Endless water, stretching in all directions.  He is being carried over the sea, moving fast.

He cranes his head up and sees the second thing.  An impossible thing.  A bird - an eagle.  Large as the front hall of his father’s palace.  Holding him in its talons.  Staring ahead, eyes fixed on something Ganymede cannot see.

He must be dreaming.  Has to be.

But the eagle looks down at him then, past a beak sharp and curved and as long as he is tall.  The eagle’s eyes are bigger than Ganymede’s skull, and they stare down at him gravely, conveying emotions beyond fathoming.

“Sleep, boy.”

The voice is everywhere, vast as the sky, and rolls through him: his mind and entire body.  He does sleep, instantly, as commanded, and knows no more.


End file.
